Saturday, March 5, 2011

Grace's first herding lesson

Today Grace had her first herding lesson.  It was short but she worked hard.  The snow in the pen was pretty deep and fairly loose, so she had to really jump versus run.  Kim worked her since she wanted to get a feel for how she thought, which was great.  Kim had her working both ways and learning to respect the shepherd and the flock- and the crook too.  Grace was really eager to go and chase, but she was starting to understand not to crowd and to give a bit of distance. Kim got her to stop a couple of times too.   Lots of thinking for a very excited girl. 

We were going to have a couple of other lessons this month, but Kim thinks we should wait for less snow, so she can work a bit easier. She was breathing pretty hard after a short session.  I am going to work with her and the rest of the dogs too to build up some endurance. Being city dogs, they dont get enough running time, so they all need more work. So that is my homework, as well as working on a stop.

1 comment:

penni said...

When Chase was planning to go to Camp Susan, that was one of the first things Susan asked -- "Does he have a STOP?" She didn't mean "Hey, stop it right now." She meant FREEZE. What a difference it makes when they do have a stop. Grace will move along so much faster since Kim can tell her to stop.

They love the herding -- glad you can give your guys the chance to do it.